A Literary History of the ArabsNicholson, Reynold Alleyne
History
A Literary History of the Arabs
Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Arabic literature -- History and criticism
Shaqíq, also of Balkh, laid particular stress on the duty of leaving
one's self entirely in God's hands (_tawakkul_), a term which is
practically synonymous with passivity; _e.g._, the _mutawakkil_ must
make no effort to obtain even the barest livelihood, he must not ask for
anything, nor engage in any trade: his business is with God alone. One
of Shaqíq's sayings was, "Nine-tenths of devotion consist in flight from
mankind, the remaining tenth in silence." Similarly, Fuḍayl b.
‘Iyáḍ, a converted captain of banditti, declared that "to abstain for
men's sake from doing anything is hypocrisy, while to do anything for
men's sake is idolatry." It may be noticed as an argument against the
Indian origin of Ṣúfiism that although the three Ṣúfís who have
been mentioned were natives of Khurásán or Transoxania, and therefore
presumably in touch with Buddhistic ideas, no trace can be found in
their sayings of the doctrine of dying to self (_faná_), which plays a
great part in subsequent Ṣúfiism, and which Von Kremer and others
have identified with _Nirvána_. We now come to a more interesting
personality, in whom the ascetic and quietistic type of Ṣúfiism is
transfigured by emotion and begins clearly to reveal the direction of
its next advance. Every one knows that women have borne a distinguished
part in the annals of European mysticism: St. Teresa, Madame Guyon,
Catharine of Siena, and Juliana of Norwich, to mention but a few names
at random. And notwithstanding the intellectual death to which the
majority of Moslem women are condemned by their Prophet's ordinance, the
Ṣúfís, like the Roman Catholics, can boast a goodly number of female
saints. The oldest of these, and by far the most renowned, is Rábi‘a,
who belonged to the tribe of ‘Adí, whence she is generally called Rábi‘a
al-‘Adawiyya. She was a native of Baṣra and died at Jerusalem,
probably towards the end of the second century of Islam: her tomb was an
object of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, as we learn from Ibn Khallikán
(† 1282 A.D.). Although the sayings and verses attributed to her by
Ṣúfí writers may be of doubtful authenticity, there is every reason
to suppose that they fairly represent the actual character of her
devotion, which resembled that of all feminine mystics in being inspired
by tender and ardent feeling. She was asked: "Do you love God Almighty?"
"Yes." "Do you hate the Devil?" "My love of God," she replied, "leaves
me no leisure to hate the Devil. I saw the Prophet in a dream. He said,
'O Rábi‘a, do you love me?' I said, 'O Apostle of God, who does not love
thee?--but love of God hath so absorbed me that neither love nor hate of
any other thing remains in my heart.'" Rábi‘a is said to have spoken the
following verses:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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